Reviews

Swiss playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s 1956 play was written partly out of his unease at his country’s response to World War 2 and its aftermath, a time when poverty was endemic in much of Europe. The entire community in the fictional town of Guellen (which apparently means ‘excrement’ in Swiss) is in a state of complete despair, so when a former resident, Claire Zachanassian, now very rich, returns with the offer of a great deal of money in return for justice being done with regard to an incident from many years previously, the people face a moral dilemma that will change

His eccentric Aunt Augusta persuades retired bank manager Henry to abandon his dull life and embark upon a series of unexpected and hilarious adventures. Travelling with his aunt to Brighton, Paris, Istanbul and then across the world to South America, Henry encounters his aunt’s shady associates – pot-smoking hippies, war criminals, men from the CIA and art smugglers. Henry finds himself coming alive as he puts his former life behind him. You will realise from the foregoing description that this production is a long way from the three-act, three-set format with which we are all so familiar. It is indeed

Stylish projected sequences onto hanging boards during the overture tell some of the back story of the principals, showing the infant Casilda growing up in Spain and the infant prince growing up in Venice and then the adult Casilda and her parents journeying overseas to Venice. The projections onto these boards throughout the show are something that D’Oyly Carte couldn’t even have dreamed of, but it is one of the many excellent modernisations of this show. Somebody muttered in my ear that you can hire these in, but the programme credits Set and Projection Design to Kevin Wilkins; whoever did

Originating from a 1970 play by Christopher Bond, this portrayal of the ‘Demon Barber of Fleet Street’ first appeared in 1979. With music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim alongside leading principals Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury, it was inevitable that the production would win both a Tony and an Olivier Award for Best New Musical. It is an unsettling tale of a Victorian-era barber who returns home to London after fifteen years of exile to take revenge on the corrupt judge who ruined his life. When revenge eludes him, Sweeney swears vengeance on the entire human race, murdering as many

Antigone is a Greek mythological tale about power, status, honour, dysfunctional families and the struggle between the individual and those in positions of authority. Antigone, daughter/sister of Oedipus and his mother/lover, Jocasta, witnesses the deaths of her two brothers in battle: one, Eteokles, dies while defending the city when attacked by the other, Polyneikes. Antigone’s uncle, Kreon, declares that Eteokles should be awarded a burial with full honours, but that Polyneikes should be left on the battlefield where he fell. Antigone is horrified by this declaration and defies her uncle, his declared law and the power of the authorities to

In the early ’nineties, I saw a band called the Manic Street Preachers on one of their early tours supporting their first album. They played for little more than an hour, then left the stage: such was their thing. No encore, just an hour of frenzied neo-punk. But that was all that I, as an audience member, required and I felt that my punk-rock needs had been satiated. Effie’s Burning is described as a ‘short play’ and lasts a little over an hour. That hour left me and my theatrical needs totally satiated. Totally satisfied. Full up, you may say.